Olga Romanoff
Olga Anastasia Romanoff is an OC who does not appear anywhere in the canon. she is both a witch and a constble in the Anh-Morpork City Watch. Her cousin Natasha Romanoff is a pupil at the Assassins' Guild School. Olga came from the hazy undefined border region further out, where Überwald shaded into Zlobenia (and possibly into Borogravia, depending on who was defining where the border ran, and the number of crossbows they could muster to back up the proposition). Olga generally identified herself as Zlobenian as this was easiest, but her father and family held extensive estates in both countries. She had been expensively privately educated to speak Quirmian, as a cultured boyar noblewoman should, and Morporkian, as this was the accepted lingua quirmia of the Central Continent. Her spoken Morporkian normally only had the slightest of accents, but under stress her accent reverted to a strong Far Überwaldean peppered with some very expressive terms, which her father maintained she had learnt from the kulaks. (1) Discovering she could do magic had led to the local babiushka covertly asking around, and making contact with a mysterious peripatetic visitor called Miss Perspicacia Tick. The old babiushka had frankly said she had done everything she could with her two uchenikii, but both needed new teachers, and she’d heard talk of a place called Lancre way out to the Turnwise where witches were powerful and took apprentices? Besides, Miss Olga’s father owns everything round here and when he finds out I’ve been tutoring his daughter, well, I can deal with it, but I don’t want that kind of trouble, not at my time of life, Cossacks coming round on a pogrom to burn the isba down. It isn’t much but it’s my dacha, know what I mean? (2) Miss Tick had smiled and patted the old witch’s hand reassuringly. She knew just the place for Olga and Irena. And so Olga, and the old witch’s other local pupil, Irena Politek, both aged sixteen-seventeen, had trekked Turnwise, living on broomsticks and their wits, finally arriving in Lancre Town after a long search. The two had bonded in the shared realization that like it or not, magic had been inflicted on them. They also loved flight and were fascinated by broomstick technomancy. Absorbed into the informal coven of pupil witches, they had realized that being seventeen in a group of girls aged twelve-to-fifteen made them impossibly old. Two years is a gulf at that age. They’d been accepted, but largely stood off to one side and watched, while Annagramma Hawkin and Tiffany Aching fought out their dominance battle. They got on with it, passing through several apprenticeships in various steadings to see practice, learning from the best. And then one day. On the long and not necessarily direct road back from Überwald, Sir Samuel Vimes and Lady Sybil Ramkin came to Lancre. Sybil performed a favour for Granny Weatherwax concerning dragons. (3) Sir Samuel had remarked that he wanted to expand the Air Watch. Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax had gone into a huddle with Queen Magrat. A decision had been made about them two older girls from forn parts. Both devils for broomsticks. They’d thrive in the city. Be able to fly a lot. And Witches in the Watch can only improve it. Offered salaried Air police jobs, Olga and Irena had both said Yes, please!”, becoming Witch Police Constables. They had a research team supporting them, paid for by the Duke of Ankh. Recently, owing to a gorgon constable who was punched in the face by a troll and got a nose-bleed, they had acquired a brace of pegasii, fabled wingèd horses thought long extinct. (4) (5) (1) A character trait she shared with other strong women to whom Morporkian was a second language. Like Johanna Smith-Rhodes’ Vondalaans and the dialects of Quirmian spoken by Emmanuelle-Marie Lapoignard les Deux-Epées and Antoinette de Badin-Boucher, Far Überwaldean was a very expressive and explosive language for swearing in. in accordance with narrative causality and the continual stream of resonance particles which quantum postulates link the planes of the Multiverse, it resonates strongly to our Russian. Even if to some research wizards that’s just a great big steaming pile of govno. ' (2)' Olga doubted that she’d be seriously inconvenienced. The hetman of her father’s Cossacks had terrible saddle--sores that gave him some right gyp, I mean I’m a leader of hardy and terrible horsemen, that sort of thing’s downright embarrassing, and the local babiushka provided discreet salves and ointments. Several other Cossacks in the local stanitsi also tended to diffidently knock on the back door of her isba and ask for things to, you know, sort out little problems. ' (3)' Shameless plug: see my story How André Got his Badge Back. ' (4)' Shameless plug: see my story Bad Hair Day. ' (5)' And in a further year or two they’d find a whole new world of adventure when the secret of the crawstep became known to Ankh-Morpork. Category:Witches Category:City Watch